Texas Waterfowl Hunting

contributed photos San Antonio Hunters Sam Bell and J.M. Vance pose with Arthur and Thos Mathis of Rockport after a Thanksgiving Day hunt in 1913.

Rob Sawyer's book, " A Hundred Years of Texas Waterfowl Hunting" covers the decoys, guides, clubs and places from the 1870s to the 1970s. Published by Texas A&amp;M Press.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS The gilded sporting era of the Coastal Bend was ushered in with Col. Edward H.R. "Eddie" Green's Tarpon Club in 1898. The opulent private hunting and fishing club on St. Joseph Island had 18 sleeping rooms, servants quarters and running water and its own power plant.

Courtesy Port Bay Club Rockport's Port Bay Club during the late 1920s. Club manager Arthur Curry is second from left. Elaine Curry Vandeveer and her brother Maurice are seated. The house in the background is the Chandler house, one of the original club cottages.

PHOTO COURTESY JIM MALONEY A rare photo of the Japonica after a duck hunting excursion from the 1920s or 1930s.

Hunters returning to Corpus Christi from a duck hunt on a boat believed to be the Japonica or a similar boat used to ferry hunters during the 1920s and 1930s.

A hunter in Aransas Pass poses with his daily bag of waterfowl from 1911.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Baker Cyrus E. Farley, on left, and his father, game warden and naturalist R.E. Farley, far right, with two Chesapeake Bay Retrievers after a hunt at Harbor Island from the late 1910s or 1920s. .